Book targets Manchester's 'corporate' vice-chancellor

Professor Alan Gilbert is two weeks into his new job as vice-chancellor of the merged University of Manchester, but he is still making waves in his native Australia. A prominent Australian academic last week published a 250-page book, claiming that under Professor Gilbert's eight-year tenure as vice-chancellor, the University of Melbourne had lost its way.

When Professor Gilbert was appointed to the job of managing the merged University of Manchester - which from September will be the biggest university in the country - he was billed as having a "particularly successful track record of providing strong leadership to universities facing merger".

But the new book, Off Course: From Public Place to Market Place at Melbourne University, claims that Professor Gilbert left the university a "quasi-privatised institution in the corporate mould". Its authors are John Cain, a former head of the Victoria government and Melbourne University academic, and John Hewitt, a former tutor at the University of Melbourne.

The book claims that, in its marketing and self-promotion, Melbourne has lost sight of its fundamental role as a public institution; that managers wield too much power and don't understand the needs of academics; and that the democracy of the institution has been eroded.

Writing exclusively for Student Direct, the Manchester University student newspaper, Professor Gilbert responded to the book's charges by labeling its authors "highly ideological", citing the expansion of staff and facilities at Melbourne as proof that his methods work.

He wrote: "The authors of the new book are right to attribute these outcomes to a willingness to engage in non-government, revenue-generating strategies and to make the university less dependent on government funding.

"But they are wrong to imply that the strategies have failed. Indeed it is the very success of the 'Melbourne agenda' which irritates them. The development of mixed funding has been an emphatic success in Melbourne, and this 'Melbourne agenda' (as it is called) has had the support of the great majority of staff at the university, who see it as the basis on which the maintenance and improvement of the academic quality has been possible."

Professor Gilbert is also facing controversy in Manchester, where Student Direct reported that the university is planning to sell off the £2.5m Mobberley Old Hall, described as a "rare example of a fine early 17th century grade II listed Jacobean manor house".

The university's staff newsletter reported the director of estates, Diana Hampson as saying: "This is an unusual property with a considerable amount of land and being 17 miles from the campus, needing extensive renovation and ongoing upkeep, it was decided to put the estate on the market with the proceeds going to support Project Unity. There has been a great amount of interest and we expect to achieve a good price for the Old Hall and the other lots."